Guilty Pleasures

Sports Guy turned me on to the guilty pleasure of MTV's The Hills a few months back. So when I finally got my computer back up I went on a downloading binge to catch up on missed episodes.

(tip: If you are on Rogers and you use Bitorrent your speeds will be ass-slow unless you use encryption, then it works okay)

It's a reality show about Lauren; a slightly dim-witted everygirl who moves to LA to go to fashion school and work at Teen Vogue. We watch her as she tries so so hard to please her rich bum boyfriend and her selfish slacker best friend, Heidi.

The only likable character is Whitney, her co-intern at Vogue. In fact she is a charmer. It's sickening, but irresistable to watch Lauren try to act happy for Whitney, when (the smarter and harder working) Whitney gets cool jobs and promotions.

The main pitfall of the show is that none of the characters are remotely interesting. The dudes are especially lame, and so hard to tell apart, since they are all beefy fratboy types who call each other "broe" and do little else. Luckily the episodes are only 20 minutes long, so it's over before you can get really bored.

Catching up on The Hills is also a nice change from Dog the Bounty Hunter marathons on A&E. A&E and TLC: pioneers of the goatee/tattoo/black T-shirt documentary show genre.